For many years, industry has been concerned with designing and providing activatable materials for providing adhesion; baffling; sealing; noise, vibration, and/or harshness reduction; reinforcement; the like, or a combination thereof to articles of manufacture such as automotive vehicles. More recently, it has become important to apply these materials in a condition that makes the materials more adaptable to further processing or assembly of the articles of manufacture. As an example, it may be desirable to apply an activatable material to a substrate prior to activation wherein the substrate requires no prior treatment and the activatable material is attached by interlocking with one or more through-holes via forming the shape of the activatable material to adapt to the shape of the through-holes so that the activatable material holds itself in place. In another example, the activatable materials may be applied to a first surface that includes fasteners and then the surface and the activatable material are applied to the article of manufacture; thus, requiring multiple steps so that the article of manufacture is prepared for use.
Some challenges faced by known materials are that the materials need to be pre-shaped, include one or more mechanical fasteners, or some other adhesive so that the materials are held in place in the pre-activation state. Other challenges faced by known materials is that the materials require one or more processing steps before the materials are applied to an article of manufacture. For example, the material is first applied to a carrier and then the carrier and the material is applied to the article of manufacture. In another example, the material must be shaped and/or formed before the material is attached to the article of manufacture. Some examples of materials and application methods of materials may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,358,397; 6,311,452; 6,926,784; and 7,249,415; and U.S. Patent Application Nos. 2006/0008615; 2006/0045866; 2006/0057333; and 2008/0023987, all of which are incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. Therefore, it is desirable to have a material that is applied directly to an article of manufacture and the material self-anchors itself to the article of manufacture. Furthermore, it is desirable to have a material that does not require any additional processing steps or components so that the material is attached to the article of manufacture.